The use of mobile electronics is growing by leaps and bounds. Mobile devices, such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants, are transforming from relatively-simple single-function devices into complex devices with both telephone and PDA capabilities. With these improvements comes a greater need for configurability and maintenance. Often, configuration settings stored on the mobile device need to be changed. For instance, a service provider may have a need to change a subscribers configuration settings in response to a change in service, or a setting related to an e-mail application on the device may need modification.
Recent advancements in technology have enabled provisioning systems to pass down configuration changes to a mobile device. However, these advancements have created new security concerns. For instance, mobile device users are concerned about the risk that a malicious entity could issue remote queries and discover various sensitive settings stored on their mobile devices, such as addresses of trusted proxy servers, information for creating symmetric encryption keys, and the like. Or worse still, hackers could possibly discover personal information, such as financial or contact information, stored on the mobile device. Until now, a solution to these security issues has eluded those skilled in the art.